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I pulled in to a gas station recently and my son made the comment that THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER!
It’s hard to wait when you’re a kid.
As a kid, I remember my mom telling my brothers and I to wait in the car while she ran into a store to return an item.
And so, we waited, and waited, and waited!
Then we saw an ambulance pull up in front of the store and load someone in the back that looked a lot like my mom!
This was scary but my mom was fine.
She has epilepsy and had a seizure while in the store.
This was not the plan.
The plan was for her to return her item and come right back.
As adults, things don’t always go according to our plan.
Growing up as a Red Sox fan in the 80’s & 90’s, hope was all we had.
Going without World Series title since 1918…there was always NEXT YEAR!
And in government, politicians are always full of promises.
Last week the president issued an executive order designed to make government more efficient, more streamlined, more user friendly.
Many of us hear this and say to ourselves, I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT! Why are we so skeptical?
It’s because politicians have made so many promises that have not come to fruition that they almost don’t mean anything to us any more.
And if your hope rests in government, then you wait and hope that the next election cycle will bring real change.
God has made certain promises to His people.
But as followers of Jesus it’s easy to look around at our circumstances and wonder to ourselves, WHAT ON EARTH IS GOD DOING?!
Killer tornadoes just weeks before Christmas!
A new NY mask mandate.
A COVID virus that just won’t go away!
A cancer diagnosis!
A sharply polarized and divided society.
WHAT ON EARTH IS GOD DOING?!
We’re in the gospel of Matthew this morning - looking at the genealogy of Jesus.
Matthew is going to answer this question by stepping back and looking at how God has painted on the canvas of over 2,000 years of history.
My hope this morning is for your to know that if you are one of God’s children, He paints on the smaller canvas of your life in similar ways.
So, go ahead and grab your bibles and turn with me to Matthew 1:1-17.
Please stand with me if you are able out of respect for the Word of God and follow along with me as I read.
PRAY
If your head is spinning after this morning’s passage and you’re wondering what on earth does this have to do with Christmas, It’s understandable — hang in there.
Matthew is cramming 42 generations — almost 2,000 years of history in to 16 verses!
I want to help you see how a first century Jew would have understood this and then to highlight the message of hope that is for all of us!
My 3 points this morning are...
The Hopes
The Fears
The Plan of God
The Hopes
Remember with me back to Genesis 3, when God promised ultimate defeat would come to satan at the heel of the offspring of Eve.
This meant that with each new baby boy born in Eve’s line, there was degree of hope associated with him…could this be the one!?
God made a promise of land and blessing to the nations that would come through Abraham’s offspring.
So, as you look at the genealogy here, with every new name, was the hope of could this be the one!?
Later God made a promise to king David, that someone from his family would sit on the throne of an unending kingdom.
Again, with each new baby, could this be the one?!
So, as you look over this list of names, I want you to see a long history of promise and hope, and waiting.
If you belong to Jesus, you have been given promises on the other side of Christmas that you hope for too.
Jesus promised that he would return to earth and punish wickedness and reward the righteous.
He promised to usher in his forever kingdom in it’s fullness!
He promised that we would be with him forever!
He promised us new glorified bodies that would never know sickness or death!
And with each passing day, season, year, decade, we hope and wonder, could this be the day?!
The Fears
Super Bowl 42 was a season of great promise for the New England Patriots.
Undefeated and playing in the Super Bowl to cap off a perfect season.
With about a minute to go in the game, the Giants were down 14-10 and facing a 3rd and 5 from their own 44 yard line.
Eli Manning was being swarmed by the Patriots pass rush but somehow managed to escape and hurl the ball down field to David Tyree for a 32 yard completion.
With Rodney Harrison all over him, Tyree somehow managed to catch the ball by pinning it to his helmet and maintaining possession even as he fell to the ground with Harrison on top of him!
Just a few plays later Plaxico Burress caught the game winning touchdown to break the hearts of Patriot nation!
Upon closer examination of this genealogy there are many stories of failure.
After Abraham, Jacob was a deceiver who swindled his brother out of his inheritance.
In verse 3 Juda fathers Perez & Zerah by Tamar in a story that’s not fit for going into detail with children in the room.
You can read about it on your own in Genesis 38.
After God promises land and blessing through Abraham, they would eventually find themselves living as slaves in Egypt for 400 years!
You’d have to imagine that a couple hundred years into their slavery, some of God’s people had to have been asking themselves, WHAT ON EARTH IS GOD DOING?!
And then after God delivers them from slavery bringing them through the parted Red Sea, you’re thinking this is it!
But no!
The people rebel and are punished by living in the desert for 40 years!
Then after finally entering the land comes the period of the Judges where Israel repeatedly forgets God and is given into the hands of their enemies.
Finally David takes the thrown after the miserable failure of Israel’s first king Saul.
And God promises David that one of his descendents would sit on the thrown of an eternal kingdom!
But after David, the kings go from bad to worse with only a few bright spots.
His son Solomon’s heart would be led astray by his many wives to worship other gods.
Solomon’s son Rehoboam would lose 10 of the 12 tribes when the kingdom divided in civil war.
King Ahaz and Manasseh were so deplorable that they would sacrifice their own sons in worship of false gods!
Eventually things would get so bad that God gave them into the hands of the Babylonians who burned Jerusalem and its temple to the ground and carried God’s people into exile!
I can imagine an Israelite being led into Babylonian captivity with the smoke of a burning Jerusalem rising in the background, asking themself WHAT ON EARTH IS GOD DOING?!
Things were never the same after God’s people returned from exile.
And eventually they would go 400 years without a single word from God through a prophet.
This genealogy is littered with stories of failure!
What’s your story?
What failures have you experienced?
Maybe you have been let down or disappointed by broken promises or hurt from others...
Maybe you had a father or mother who failed you.
Maybe you’ve failed your own kids.
Maybe your a failed spouse or live with one.
Maybe your career has never taken off and it’s been let downs after setbacks...
And you’re asking yourself, WHAT ON EARTH IS GOD DOING?
What God is Doing
So, we’ve looked at this genealogy now through the lens of hopes and fears.
In this last point we’re going to look at this through one final lens and identify some principles of the God’s Plan to encourage you and give you hope in the midst of whatever circumstances you find yourself in.
First, notice that Matthew groups this genealogy into 3 groups of 14 generations.
And he even emphasizes this by mentioning the number 14 3 times in verse 17.
We also know from other places in scripture that there were more than 42 generations in Jesus’ genealogy.
So, Matthew has abbreviated this genealogy on purpose to send message.
But what is it?
Numbers are fascinating in the bible and they were meaningful to God’s people.
Today when I think of the NBA and the number 33, I think of Larry Bird!
Or 23 and Michael Jordan!
Or in the NFL, 12 brings to mind Tom Brady!
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